Your once daily stop for tech news! If it's important we've got it covered!
Our focus is on mobile devices such as phones and tablets, but anything goes!
The Twitter page @EVleaks is starting to make quite a name for itself in the phone community, because the people behind it are getting quite a few scoops on the news before it happens. Over the weekend the site posted a few more cheeky snaps of Asus' new Padfone.
The rather handsome device above has just popped out of Motorola today. But, we must say it's a looker and the specs are pretty darn good too.
There's a 4.5-inch 1280 x 720 HD Colorboost display, LTE, and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. Which is powers Ice Cream Sandwich, 8 and 1.3-megapixel front cameras and Motorola’s own SMARTACTIONS software on top of Android 4.0.
The goodness doesn't stop here though; there’s 8GB of user-storage and a microSD card slot, along with a 1,780 mAh battery. The device itself crams all of this into a shell that's 69.9 x 133.5 x 8.4 mm and weighs 140g, and is clad in a soft-touch plastic. The two-tone colour-scheme can be chosen over a titanium-esque finish depending on your preference.
You also get mobile hotspot functionality – for up to five tethered devices – together with microUSB, HDMI, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/aGPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the usual bevy of sensors such as an accelerometer, proximity and ambient light. It’s splash-resistant and uses Kevlar for increased ruggedness, along with a Gorilla Glass front.
Motorola is keen to target the Atrix HD at business users; they've been pushing the Webtop app and it's ability to push your goods through a HDMI output and Bluetooth peripherals, somehting which they hope will make this a computer replacement, although hopefully this implementation will be better than past attempts from Moto. We don't know when it'll officially go on sale or for how much but our detective skills have pushed us to the conclusion that this is destined for AT&T when it eventually gets around to launching.
One thing to keep an eye on is that the little guy seems to have a relatively stock implementation of Android so maybe, just maybe, Google is starting to assert some authority.
In other news:
The domain ipad3.com has been handed over to Apple after they complained about someone else owning it.
The new game Assassins Creed 3: Liberation will use live actors!
If you've tried the Windows 8 preview then you can upgrade to the real thing for $40!
The Google Nexus 7, when it hits the UK will lack access to tv shows, magazines and Google music, so perhaps that might take the gloss off of the device for you, but probably not!
The PS Vita will be getting a whole host of PSOne games this summer as Sony continue to push their slick little gaming station.
Lenovo have reportedly met with Microsoft to discuss the possibility of customising Windows Phone for use on future devices. This could work out well for both companies because Lenovo have access to their huge home market of China.
The Nokia N9 received PR1.3 today, which brought over 1000 bug fixes, optimisations and updates.
Today Google has had their annual announcement/press conference/ everything you need to know about Android day and along with that came the ever exciting keynote. This one in particular, was so good people on Twitter have literally been calling it the 'best keynote ever'! And lets find out why!
The Nexus 7.
It's hard to choose the best place to start with the sheer amount of events from today, but the widely rumoured Google tablet definitely did come to fruition, with a few very pleasant surprises too!
Firstly, the specs of this 7 incher are very solid indeed. The screen has a resolution of 1280x800 and it's an IPS display, which is coated in "scratch-resistant Corning glass". At the moment we can only assume this is a variety of the extremely robust Gorilla glass. As well as this great screen, there's a front-facing, 1.2-megapixel camera, but no rear camera, which arguably isn't particularly useful on a tablet anyway!
Inside there's 1GB of RAM, and NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 SoC. Connectivity options are as diverse as you would expect thanks to the GPS, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Micro USB options and as a bonus there's NFC for all your Android Beaming needs.The battery is rated at 4325mAh and the usual spate of sensors: accelerometer, magnetometer, and a gyroscope are all present and counted for.
The whole device has been squeezed down to 198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm and you have a choice of either 8 (£159 or $199) or 16GB (£199 or $249) of storage. This is an insanely cheap price for what you actually get here. The devices will be available on the Play store in the USA for pre-order now and the UK has the same option now too! And you can expect the device to land on your doorstep in mid-July!
The video below is a brief introduction to the tablet and the new version of Android, which is called Jelly Bean or 4.1!
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean!
This is the latest update to Google's Android Operating System and appears to be a minor upgrade over ICS. The update has been confirmed to be available on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and Motorola Xoom in mid-July as an OTA update, and the SDK will be available today as part of a developer preview.
One of the biggest features is Project Butter, a huge effort by Google to improve performance and response time. The whole system will be ticking over at 60fps from now on, and while the difference of a few miliseconds might sound minimal but, the guys over at Engadget have described it as 'glaringly apparently the moment you run Jelly Bean next to an ICS device', so it must be a very notable improvement. Animations are said to appear a lot smoother and quicker and your devices CPU immediately increases it's speed the second a touch is detected to ensure an almost immediate response.
The home screen has also been reconfigured, with the addition of some clever features like dynamically resizable widgets, so you don't have to run through the steps of; placing, resizing and again placing it exactly where you want it. From now on if there is room on a home screen, but your app icons are a little in the way, the widget will automatically push them off to the side or to the next 'page'. Another nice touch, which is undoubtedly inspired by Mathias Duarte's efforts with WebOS, apps and widgets can now be removed by flinging them off the screen. Another highly useful addition is offline voice input. Now you can tap the microphone and dictate a message even with the phone in airplane mode, saving you time and your internet allowance!
The camera app, which was really sold in ICS has been updated again in Andorid 4.1. The gallery's integration has been tightened up and looks great. It allows you to quickly pull up the photo you just took with a swipe to the left. You can continue swiping through your images or you can pinch to zoom out and view all your images in a filmstrip view. Deleting images is as simple as swiping a pic off the screen and, if you've manage to accidentally removed one, a quick tap of the undo button restores it, because we can see a lot of accidental swipes going on here. And both images and video can be shared using Google Beam, and Android now supports pairing with Bluetooth devices with the assistance of NFC.
The Nexus Q.
Google's first own-brand consumer electronics product is a small, sphere-shaped device that will work with the Nexus 7 tablet and other Android devices to stream media from the cloud. It's designed to take centre stage in a living room, preferably yours, with the ability to pull content from YouTube and the Google Play music app, among other services, allowing you stream music and video. Anyone with an Android device will be able to take control of the Q to play content from their library; basically, everyone can be the DJ. What's more, the device can double as an amplifier, letting users plug in external speakers to receiver power from the Q's 25-watt amp.
The device will be powered by an OMAP 4460 processor, that's the same chips that's in the Galaxy Nexus, and there's also 16GB of storage and 1GB of RAM. The connectivity options include dual-band WiFi and Ethernet, together with Bluetooth and NFC for tapping a device to the Q to exchange software and media. The little streamer will go on sale for $299 in mid-July. Google will also offer up a set of $399 Triad bookshelf speakers to go with the Q, it's expensive by my goodness it's also uber cool!
For those of you who care about employment opportunities, the Nexus Q will be entirely constructed in the United States!
All the other details:
Google+:
Google+ has 250 million users, more mobile users than desktop users interestingly!
Google has announced Google+ Events.
Google+ on Android and iPad have got specific tablet versions!
Misc.:
Google Play has started offering movies, TV shows and magazines from today!
Google has cut the price of the Galaxy Nexus to $349 and it now comes with Jelly Bean.
400 million Android devices have been sold in total, with 1 million activations per day!
Google Play now has 600,000 apps and has had 20 billion downloads.
Google's Project Glass has official availability for early 2013! The 'Explorer addition' which is demoed in the video below, will set you back $1500.
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